The Land of Promise eBook

D. TORBETT

Illustrated with Scenes from the Photoplay
A Paramount Picture
Starring Thomas Meighan

[Illustration: LoveforherhusbandisfinallyborninNora.]

Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers, New York
Made in the United States of America.
Copyright, 1914, by
Edward J. Clode

THE LAND OF PROMISE

CHAPTER I

Nora opened her eyes to an unaccustomed consciousness
of well-being. She was dimly aware that it had
its origin in something deeper than mere physical
comfort; but for the moment, in that state between
sleeping and wakening, which still held her, it was
enough to find that body and mind seemed rested.

Youth was reasserting itself. And it was only
a short time ago that she had felt that never, never,
could she by any possible chance feel young again.
When one is young, one resents the reaction after any
strain not purely physical as if it were a premature
symptom of old age.

A ray of brilliant sunshine, which found its way through
a gap in the drawn curtains, showed that it was long
past the usual hour for rising. She smiled whimsically
and closed her eyes once more. She remembered
now that she was not in her own little room in the
other wing of the house. The curtains proved
that. How often in the ten years she had been
with Miss Wickham had she begged that the staring
white window blind, which decorated her one window,
be replaced by curtains or even a blind of a dark
tone that she might not be awakened by the first ray
of light. She had even ventured to propose that
the cost of such alterations be stopped out of her
salary. Miss Wickham had refused to countenance
any such innovation.

Three years before, when the offending blind had refused
to hold together any longer, Nora had had a renewal
of hope. But no! The new blind had been
more glaringly white than its predecessor, which by
contrast had taken on a grateful ivory tone in its
old age. They had had one of their rare scenes
at its advent. Nora had as a rule an admirable
control of her naturally quick temper. But this
had been too much.

“I might begin to understand your refusal if
you ever entered my room. But since it would
no more occur to you to do so than to visit the stables,
I cannot see what possible difference it can make,”
Nora had stormed.

Miss Wickham’s smile, which at the beginning
of her companion’s outburst had been faintly
ironic, had broadened into the frankly humorous.

“Stated with your characteristic regard for
exactitude, my dear Miss Marsh, it would never enter
my head to do either. I prefer the white blind,
however. As you know, I have no taste for explanations.
We will let the matter rest there, if you please.”
Then she had added: “Some day, I strongly
suspect, some man will amuse himself breaking that
fiery temper of yours. I wish I were not so old,
I think that I should enjoy knowing that he had succeeded.”
And the incident had ended, as always, with a few
angry tears on Nora’s part, as a preliminary
to the inevitable game of bezique which finished off
each happy day!